100 golf cour­ses must close

BEI­JING: The Chi­nese gov­ern­ment has out­lawed more than 100 golf cour­ses around the coun­try as it clamps down on il­le­gal land and wa­ter use.

Of a to­tal of 683 golf cour­ses in China, 111 have been or­dered to close since a crack­down was launched in 2011, ac­cord­ing to the Na­tional De­vel­op­ment and Re­form Com­mis­sion, China’s top eco­nomic plan­ner.

China im­posed a ban on the con­struc­tion of new golf cour­ses in 2004, when there were fewer than 200, to pro­tect land and wa­ter re­sources. How­ever, the num­ber con­tin­ued to rise as the sport gained pop­u­lar­ity, es­pe­cially in busi­ness and of­fi­cial cir­cles. – Xin­hua